Harry Potter Auror Stories: By Wand or By Grace
by Truth Be A Liar
Summary: The first in what I hope to make into a series of stories about Harry's work as an Auror. Four years after his graduation from Hogwarts, Harry is called to Beauxbatons to investigate the mysterious deaths of three students. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1: The Famous Mr James Evans

Oh yeah, I almost forgot my disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or the story of Harry Potter itself.  
  
Chapter 1: The Famous Mr. James Evans  
  
Harry had never been so thankful to see his chair and desk before in his life. He dragged his exhausted body through the doorway of his office- resisting the urge to merely collapse right there in the doorway itself- closed the door with more effort than he ever would have thought necessary, and plopped himself down onto the hard wooden chair behind his desk. He felt the mud of his robes splatter all across the floor as he did so. Normally he would feel sorry for leaving such a mess for the Magical Maintenance Department but, at the moment, he cared little for what trouble he caused the maintenance crew. He had just returned from vanquishing the "Grey Lord" Apographon, which had proven to be a much more difficult task than he had expected. So, as Harry put his muddy feet up on his desk, smudging the print on the countless pieces of parchment littering his desk, he remarked with a crooked grin spreading from the right side of his lip: "Cleaners be damned!"  
He had never expected Apographon to pose much of a threat to the Wizarding World, not much more, anyway, than the legions of other Death Eaters who had been springing up to take the newly vacant position of Dark Lord now that Voldemort had finally met his doom. When Harry had finally killed the true Dark Lord in his final year at Hogwarts, he was certain that it would mean an end to the troubles that had plagued Wizards throughout England, and throughout the rest of the world, since Voldemort's initial rise to power. Alas, this tranquility was simply not meant to be. In the wake of Voldemort's death, Lucius Malfoy, one of Voldemort's supporters, had stepped up to lead the Death Eaters in their efforts to rid the Wizarding world of impure, Muggle blood.  
Malfoy-despite the power and influence he had always held due to his wealth, and despite his pompous claims to be a wizard of truly pure blood- had proven to be a rather weak wizard and was easily apprehended by the Aurors at the Ministry of Magic. Unfortunately, however, Malfoy had set a most dangerous precedent that was still being followed to this day. Now, four years after Voldemort's second and final fall, Harry had just finished doing away with Apographon, the seventeenth wizard to take up the Dark Lord's place.  
"Well if it isn't the wonderful Mr. James Evans?" came a voice from the doorway to his office. The voice came from Harry's boss, June Meretrix, a lusty harlot of a woman who had risen to her position based mainly on the number of dicks she could suck, rather than hard work or talent since she was barely more than a squib. Harry smirked as he thought of this and found it strangely comforting to realize that some things were the same in the Wizarding world as they were in the Muggle world. He stared up at June in her skirt that was hiked up far too much and her blouse that revealed far too much cleavage. Her fiery red hair danced over her pale white neck and her forehead, nearly covering her deep blue eyes. Harry thought she could have been a very beautiful woman if her looks weren't tainted by her disgusting reputation.  
Harry knew that June was addressing him, though she did not use his true name. When Harry had begun Auror training four years before, the ministry had decided that the name Harry Potter would draw far too much attention to him, being a household name to most witches and wizards, and would make Harry a target for any Dark Wizards and Death Eaters seeking to avenge Voldemort's death. Thus, the Ministry fabricated a story of Harry's death which they printed in the Daily Prophet (some sort of bilge about his final confrontation with Voldemort driving him to madness and eventually to suicide) and allowed Harry to choose a new name for himself. He chose to take his father's first name, James, and his mother's maiden name, Evans, and was forever more known to the world by this name. Few people knew of his real identity, and those few people were high ranking officials in the Ministry of Magic.  
"Returned from disposing of petty You-Know-Who impersonators?" Meretrix asked with a disdainful tone in her voice. She had been jealous of Harry since their first meeting. They had both started Auror training together (how she managed to fulfill the academic requirements to begin Auror training was a mystery to Harry), but Meretrix was quickly forced to leave the course because she simply did not have the power to complete any of the tasks set before her. She had been jealous of Harry's success as an Auror ever since, and Harry got the distinct impression that she had only slept her way into this position to spite him.  
"Apographon has been captured, yes," Harry replied, ignoring the tone of her question. After the day he had just had, the last thing he needed was any crap from June Meretrix, and he would not let her get to him today. "I escorted him to Azkaban myself," Harry continued. June snorted as if laughing at the name of the Wizarding prison. Most witches and wizards laughed off the name of Azkaban these days, and not entirely without good reason. The jail no longer held the power it once had now that the Ministry vowed never to employ Dementors again. The Ministry had put a Depression charm on the prison to simulate the presence of Dementors, but it simply did not have the same effect. But Harry remembered how much his former headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, had distrusted the Dementors. Anyone who knew Dumbledore, even by reputation, knew that, if someone didn't earn his trust, they were truly not someone you wanted to deal with.  
"Ministry's got a special assignment for you, Evans," said Meretrix coldly. She seemed to avoid ever suggesting that she had any part in giving him his assignments, despite the fact that she was his boss, and she also avoided referring to him by his first name, unless she was using it to mock him.  
"Oh, and what kind of an assignment is this?" he asked. He really had no desire to begin on his latest assignment now, not after the day he had. He had already put one dark wizard in jail today, hadn't that been enough?  
"Something to do with Beauxbatons," she said, as if she did not want to be giving him information that would actually help him. "Seems that the school has reported three student deaths in the course of this school year. They've been trying to cover it up, but it gets hard to hide the fact that three kids have died of unexplained causes."  
"Why is Beauxbatons calling on Aurors from England?" Harry asked, confused.  
"Don't know," Meretrix replied, "I guess the Ministry of whatever country they're from-,"  
"Oh come off it!" Harry interrupted. "I'm sick and tired of Beauxbatons' bullshit! Trying to hide their school's bloody location! Every witch and wizard in the world knows that that damned school is in France, why don't they just come out and admit it?"  
"True," Meretrix replied. Harry was taken aback by the fact that she had actually agreed with him, but then again, perhaps it was just that there were some things she actually despised more than Harry. "Regardless," she continued, "the school asked specifically for the help of James Evans. Don't ask me why-," she rolled her eyes as if frustrated at Harry's reputation, "-but you're who they want, and Fudge thinks that, since our relationship with the French Ministry of Magic is so weak at the moment, it would be good for International relations to do as they ask."  
Harry was disgusted. After all he had done for the Ministry, they were now sending him on a simple mission to improve international relations. A lesser Auror straight out of training could handle this mission easily enough. He was the great James Evans, only a year out of the Auror academy and he had already arrested nine Dark Wizards, and allowed none to escape his pursuit. How could they dump such a petty assignment on such an obviously talented Auror as he? As fury built up in the pit of his stomach, he glanced up at Meretrix who was now smirking at him. She looked quite pleased. Harry figured his frustration and anger must be showing through visibly in his expressions. A new rage washed over him, this one directed at June Meretrix herself. He was not happy with what the Ministry was doing, but he would not let Meretrix laugh at his insult. He would hold his head up high as if this did not bother him in the least, and smile as she watched him in helpless frustration.  
"Very well, then," Harry replied, his facing developing a smirk as Meretrix lost hers, "when do I leave then?"  
Meretrix paused for a moment, as if hoping that Harry's new, more optimistic outlook on his mission would change. Seeing that it would not, she continued on with her short briefing, albeit grudgingly. "You leave in the morning," she replied. "Beauxbatons wants to maintain the guise of secrecy, so they've arranged a portkey for you and your partner-,"  
"My partner?" Harry interrupted. His tone and mood changed abruptly. It had been a month since the death of his partner, Jackie Parvus, and the Ministry had still made no mention of providing him with a new partner. He cast his eyes down in shame. Unfortunately, the only pang of pain he felt over Parvus's death was the guilt he felt for not being more hurt by the loss. He had been far too busy with work to truly grieve over her untimely passing, but he still felt like the poor woman's death should have had a much deeper impact upon him than it seemed to be having. Then again, considering the amount of death Harry had seen in his life, it would take the loss of someone far closer to him than Parvus to truly leave him crestfallen.  
"Yes," said Meretrix, "the Ministry has found you a new partner." She pronounced the last word with contempt, as if this was a gift that should not be given to swine like Harry. "He's waiting down the hall in the lobby."  
Harry stood up from his desk with moderate curiosity. He found it strange that the Ministry had made no mention of a new partner until now, and now someone was being thrust upon him from out of the blue. Then again, Harry was quite accustomed to the Ministry acting in strange ways. He sometimes wondered why he continued to work for such an inept Ministry, but he knew that, as inefficient and corrupt as the Ministry of Magic was, the Wizarding world needed Auror's to protect the people from the wrath of Dark Wizards and those who would use the gifts of Magic power to do harm rather than good. His services were needed, and the Ministry of Magic allowed him to do the job he was best at. The role of the Ministry in his life had become a necessary evil.  
He stepped out of the doorway of his office and moved cautiously down the hallway of the Aurors' office. The hallway was made of stone and was only wide enough for two, single-file lanes of traffic to move through. The walls were decorated with enchanted windows which, despite being underground, showed the city of London in the midst of a torrential downpour. The weather outside was, in actuality, nothing like this, but it was the job of the Magical Maintenance crew to decide what whether they had each day, and apparently the crew had been in a bad mood this morning. The corridor opened up to a large lobby, adorned with only two lifts, a visitor's bench, and a plaque inscribed with some obscure motto in Latin.  
Harry's jaw dropped. He ripped his glasses off his head and ran his fingers over the lenses to check for cracks, then returned them to his face to make sure that he truly had seen what he thought he saw. His vision became blurry yet again, though, as his eyes welled up with tears. Still, through the tears that distorted his vision into a mess of colors with no coherent shapes, he could still recognize the form of the man he saw before him. He would recognize that red hair and those freckles anywhere. There, sitting on the visitor's bench, was Harry's new partner and old friend from Hogwarts, Ron Weasley. Harry could have sworn he saw the sun poking through the imaginary rain clouds in the enchanted windows. 


	2. Chapter 2: Partners in Crime Fighting

Chapter 2: Partners in Crime....Fighting  
  
Harry and Ron stood in the visitor's lounge of the Aurors' office at the Ministry of Magic, two men weeping and embracing each other without regard for the strange looks that passers-by would shoot at them. Harry had not seen Ron in about three years. They had begun Auror training together their first year out of Hogwarts, and had even maintained their close friendship through the stress of their first year of training. Ron, however, was forced to leave after only a year. Ron's father, Arthur Weasley, came down with a serious infection of Flubborian Parasites which left his internal organs torn up to shreds. Mr. Weasley needed extensive reconstructive surgery at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries which was far too expensive for the Weasley family to afford on their already tight budget. Harry, whose parents had left him a large sum of money before they died, paid for the operation, but, despite Harry's insistence that there was no need for the Weasleys to pay him back, Ron refused to think of it as anything more than a loan and took a year off from Auror training to work as a janitor at Hogwarts in order to pay Harry back.  
Now, here they stood together again, the wave of emotions flooding back. Harry had always felt guilty about not keeping in touch with Ron, but even Auror training had left him without enough free time to pursue a social life. Once he had actually started his career, he was lucky he had enough time to sleep at night. None of that mattered now, however, because now he stood with his friend held tightly to his chest and he did not feel the slightest bit of shame over his blatant display of affection.  
"I've m-m-missed you so much!" Ron said to him through tears of joy. "I almost forgot your little alias," he said, lowering his voice. "When they said I was being teamed up with James Evans, I kept thinking that I knew that name somewhere, I just couldn't remember where!"  
"Oh, Ron, you old goof!" Harry said with a light, friendly slap on the arm as he backed out of their embrace. As he stepped back, however, Harry realized for the first time that he had muddied up Ron's robes with the mud that was weighing down the bottom half of Harry's. "Oops!" Harry said, eying the stains on his old friend's robes. "Sorry about that!"  
"What?" Ron replied, looking confusedly around, trying to find exactly what Harry was looking at and apologizing for. His eyes came to the spots on his own robes. "Oh, that?" Ron said with a slight chuckle. "Don't worry about that!" Ron pulled out his wand from inside his robes and pointed it at his own body. "Scourgify!" he shouted as a beam of light issued forth from his wand, vanishing all the mud. He then turned his wand towards Harry and performed the same spell.  
"Why didn't I think of that?" said Harry. Ron shrugged. As powerful as Harry was and as well known as he had always been in the Wizarding world, he had never quite come to think of himself as a true Wizard. While Ron had grown up with a Wizarding family, Harry had not and, while he hated the despicable people he grew up with, he couldn't help but think of the Muggle world he had come to know in his childhood as being the norm. This all still seemed like some sort of dream to him, and he had the distinct feeling most of the time that he would wake up at any second and all that he loved about his life would fall away from him.  
"So how have you been?" Harry asked Ron.  
"Oh, well," Ron started awkwardly, "other than finishing Auror training a year later than I had hoped, I guess I'm doing pretty well and all."  
They both looked down, avoiding each other's eyes. Ron was finally able to repay the money that Harry had leant him, but he was still not proud of having had to rely on his best friend for money. "How's your dad?" Harry asked, immediately wishing he hadn't asked the one question that could possibly make this more awkward.  
"What? Oh, Dad, yeah," Ron responded, embarrassed, "well, he's all better now. He was really frightened he wasn't going to be able to support the family and all, y-you know, b-being out of work for so long. But when he-that is, when, you know, it happened, all of us were grown and moved out, except for Ginny. The money wasn't really a problem." There was an awkward pause. "He's been promoted now, too!" Ron spat out, trying desperately to fill the silence.  
"Really?" replied Harry happily. He was happy to see that good, old Mr. Weasley was doing so well, and also happy to see that the conversation had started to move in a far less awkward direction.  
"Yeah," Ron replied, apparently also greatly relieved, "he's head of Muggle/Wizard Relations at the Ministry now. Doing a right good job of it to boot! They say he's the best man they've ever had in the position! Then again, the position was only created about ten years ago, but that's still pretty good."  
"Yeah," replied Harry, "it sure is!" Harry was starting to feel like he was talking to his old friend at Hogwarts once again and, after the day he had had, he could not have had a more welcome surprise than this.  
"So then, partner," Ron said, giving Harry a light, playful punch on the arm, "what's the deal with this assignment at Beauxbatons?"  
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me," he replied. "Meretrix never tells me much of anything. She doesn't much like me-,"  
"Yeah," Ron said, "I noticed. The whole time I was talking to her, she couldn't seem to say your name-your fake name that is-without rolling her eyes. What did you ever do to piss her off so much?"  
"You remember what she was like back in Auror training," Harry said.  
Ron gave a snort of laughter. "Yeah," he said, "right near made Neville look like Dumbledore with all she could do. So what did she tell you about this whole Beauxbatons thing?"  
"Not much," Harry replied, "just that three students have died so far-,"  
"Died?" Ron asked in shocked disbelief. "Students have died?" Harry was taken aback to learn that Meretrix had told Ron less than she had told him.  
"Yeah," Harry replied, "that's about all I know about it. But then again, from the sounds of it, I don't think anybody over at Beauxbatons knows too much more than that either. Sounds like their pretty damn scared about what's going on and, to be honest, I don't really blame them."  
"So when do we leave?" Ron asked excitedly, the shock leaving his face and a look of pure, joyful anticipation filling his eyes. Harry knew how much Ron had always wanted to be an Auror and, as much as Harry knew that it was wrong to encourage such youthful behavior, he couldn't bring Ron down from the cloud he was on. The mission itself would take care of that if things got to out of hand, which they always did, in Harry's experience.  
"First thing in the morning," Harry told him, sorry to see the look of joy fading from Ron's eyes at the prospect of having to wait a whole twelve hours to leave. "Beauxbatons wants to pretend that the location of their school is still a big secret, so they've set up a portkey to transport us tomorrow."  
"Why can't we leave tonight?" Ron asked with the inflection of an anxious child.  
"You'll find, Ron, that patience is quite important in our line of work," Harry told him. "It's not all fun and adventure. You should know that by now, all the times we faced Voldemort back in school." Harry was astonished to see that Ron did not wince at all at the mention of the Dark Lord's name.  
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Ron said, glumly. "It's just that Auror training got me so damn pumped up, you know? Made it seem like this was going to be all action and fun, even though I knew it wasn't true. Just got me looking forward to the real thing, that's all."  
"Don't you worry, Ron," Harry told him, "by the time we get through with our first assignment, you'll be missing the monotony of Auror training like you never thought possible." Ron gave Harry a half smile at this comment that told Harry that Ron was both excited and deathly afraid of what awaited them at Beauxbatons. 


End file.
